The Negotiation

Every trishaw ride begins with one, negotiate the price with the driver. Now you can be brave and just jump in any old trishaw that comes along, give the driver a destination and deal with the fair when you arrive, but chances are if you're a Westerner that is going to be a hefty fair.

As it stands now we probably pay, make that we do pay too much, probably double what a Sri Lankan pays.

More often than not when you ask how much the driver usually says something to the effect of "No problem, you pay whatever" or "Get in, no problem" everything is no problem.

It's just automatically assumed you're rich if your a Westerner. To make things that much more difficult for us is that if we catch a trishaw outside of our apartment then they know you live in one of the most expensive apartments in Colombo, doesn't help. Works the other way around as well when we try to catch a ride to our apartment.

Funny double whammy as we ate at a restaurant at the Hilton Residences (Hilton Hotel apartments) and grabbed a trishaw back to our apartment. Yeah, try being cheap leaving one of the most expensive apartments in Colombo and going to one of the other expensive apartments in Colombo. Actually wasn't so bad, I started the negotiation off with 150 Rupees, he asked for 250 and we settled for 200 ($1.75), probably 100 if I was Sri Lanka!

Worst Drivers in The World

Without a doubt, Colombo, Sri Lanka. Once upon a time I would have said Tidewater, Virginia drivers, snort laugh, till I visited Atlanta, but that was nothing till I went to Boston, the New York.
Certainly these had to be the worst drivers in the world, until I visited Jarkarta, Indonesia. Yes, terrible traffic, but worst drivers? Maybe not. Until I visited Istanbul, Turkey. My mind was made up, yes, this is it, the winners, the worst drivers in the world, until I came here.

I have to say that the streets here are very scary! Especially the buses. There are two kinds, colorful unmaintained private buses and red government Sri Lankan Transportation buses. It's not uncommon to see one of these buses traveling at dangerous speeds weaving in and out of traffic. Add the motorcycles and trishaws and it's a constant soup of wheels.

Now I know that there are some folks reading this shaking their heads saying, no, the worst drivers in the world are (Your city and country here), well do post a comment and lets hear about it!

One Last Thing About The Train

"Please allow the departing passengers to exit the train" Friendly recorded woman's voice that plays in the Washington Metro trains.

Arriving at the station I could see the crowds. Judging by the group building up in back of me both the departing passengers and those awaiting to get on board were anticipating a quick turnover.

As the train slowed down to a safe speed I grabbed by bags and stepped down from the train, that's about as far as I got. The crowd at the station was attempting to board the train, of course hardly a soul had left the train. It was mayhem. I thought Chris would turn to fist a cuffs but she just pushed through as did I.

On a small note when you reach the exit there are two men who take your ticket, which results in a traffic jam of sorts as tourists start digging through purses and pockets looking for tickets that they never though they would need anymore.

What fun!

The Train Experience

As promised I would post a little bit more about the train trip south. We have found the trains to be a very affordable mode of transportation to near most any part of the island. There was some hesitation at first, mostly how confusing it might be to purchase the tickets and figure out the schedules etc, but as it turns out there was nothing to worry about. Purchasing the tickets is easy enough as it's just a matter of deciding what class seat you want, and even the, that doesn't matter (More on that). And regarding the train schedule, pretty much anyone you ask has a little bit of knowledge of when the train is coming or going. There are some web sites with the schedules but we find them kind of questionable.

So after you buy the ticket you head for the train. At smaller stations that could be just a matter of heading towards the one and only track, but at the bigger stations like Colombo Fort you have to know which track to go to which usually means dragging your bags up and down a flight of stairs that goes over the other tracks, did that make sense? I really need to take pictures.

There is no one to take your tickets or show you what car to get into, it's pretty much spelled out for you in big numbers on the door, 2 and 3, 2nd and 3rd class. Thus, anyone with a 3rd class ticket can enjoy the comfort (sic) of the 2nd class cars.

Comfort? Hardly. Think Washington Metro, more dirty, no climate control and open windows. The2nd class car has 2 seats per row the 3rd class car has a bench seat on each side. The cars get very filled, 2nd and 3rd. Standing (Squeezing) room only.
When the whistle blows and the train starts rolling people will jump on board and fill in and nook and cranny on the train.

I have found the best spot to be is in the doorway, just sit down with my legs on the stairs, grab a hold of one of the hand rails and enjoy the breeze.

Now I'm not the only one who knows about sitting in the doors, in fact, it's a coveted spot. So if we get on the train when it's crowded I have to wait for the cars to thin out before getting a seat, until then it's sweat and be miserable.

Of course getting to the station early will afford us a seat and we do plan on that next time.

The nest thing about sitting in the door is I get to take it all in. Listening to the train increase in speed, seeing all of the cars as the train goes round a bend, waving at the children along the tracks, occasionally smelling food being cooked, watching orange peels being thrown out the windows of the train (Men go through the cars selling oranges, water and other snacks).

The sad thing is seeing all of the tsunami damage and people living in shacks or barely that. I often gripe about the sounds of the rains that go past our apartment, we are 5 floors up (4th floor apartment + ground floor) and the sound of the trains can rattle my nerves sometimes. Well the train was passing by a shanty-ville and I realized that some of these shacks were less than 10 feet from the tracks! Actually it seemed I could just reach out and touch some of them. I could hardly even fathom what it much be like to live in them. That pretty much humbled me.

Matara the Bus Ride

Now that I have recovered from our return trip from Matara I can fill everyone in on the details.
Like many of our trips this one was planned pretty much at the last minute.
There was a communication breakdown with our driver. We had planned on taking the train south but he thought we had agreed on taking the bus. We were waiting for him at 6:45AM but he ended up picking us up at around 7:20AM.

He took us to the bus terminal which is a crowded, noisy and somewhat confusing affair upon initial appearance but starts making sense as you walk around. There are different terminals and signs that show the destination and the class of bus, normal or semi-luxury or a little of both, normal with a/c.

Our driver took us to the "semi-luxury" bus to Matara. Semi-luxury pretty much means there is air conditioning and no bench seats.

Because there is no under bus storage for luggage we had to pay for an extra seat to put our bags. All together 890 Rupees, about $8.50

We left the bus terminal and the bus conductor stands in the door saying "Matara, Matara, Matara" to announce to potential passengers where the bus was going. On our journey south the bus would slow down as it approached a bus stop and the conductor would announce "Matara, Matara, Matara". If someone wanted to get on the bus they pretty much had to run to get onboard as the bus never did stop at the bus stops.

Somewhere around the halfway point the bus did stop for everyone to have a break.

Back on the bus and after traveling for a few minutes there is a loud clanking sound coming from the left rear of the bus, I thought we had a flat. The bus pulled over and the conductor gets out as well as a few passengers. We then hear "BAM BAM BAM", it sounds like a hammer hitting something on the bus. Everyone gets on and we start traveling for maybe a minute when the noise returns. A little bit more banging, back on the road and the noise never returned.

A little further down the road the air conditioning broke and we had to open the windows, fortunately the weather was mild.

A little further down the road and "BANG", flap, flap, flap, yes this time we had a flat.

They changed the totally bald tire that had gone flat with a totally bald spare tire. Pretty quickly actually.

We are back on the road. I do have to mention that a few times along the road I saw my life flash before my eyes as dump trucks and other buses from the other direction barely miss our bus on the narrow road.

We eventually made it to our destination much to our relief.

The Wave

I learned from probably the very first time I went for a walk in Colombo, the wave. You see it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that I or any other Westerner stand out when on the sidewalks here. We are magnets for the tuk tuk drivers.

If I am walking with the traffic I can hear the little two stroke engines slowing down alongside me "Sir? Sir? tuk tuk?" to which I just smile and wave.

There are barriers along the main drag here to prevent pedestrians from crossing but at certain points, that and there are only a limited number of places for vehicles to turn. So I find it funny that if I am walking against the traffic tuk tuk drivers on the other side still honk their horns at me and try to get my attention. Funny because if I wave them over they will have to travel a bit to

turn around pick me up, travel further to turn around to take me probably two blocks!